This study investigates the variations in the quality and comprehensiveness of 104 corporate social responsibility reports published by the world’s largest financial institutions in 2012. Using a novel measure of CSR report quality, we examine the impact of certain national, legal, and firm-level factors that might explain differences in the overall quality and extent of coverage of various issues in these reports. Our findings show that legal factors and CSR environment in a firm’s country of headquarters play an important role (...) in firms’ CSR reporting quality. Common law countries exhibit systematically higher overall CSR reporting quality than code law countries. Countries with higher CSR standards, policies, and regulations in place also produce significantly higher quality CSR reports. Firm size, on the other hand, has no major impact on the overall quality of CSR reports. In further analysis of the individual aspects of CSR disclosures, namely environment, philanthropy, bribery and corruption, and integrity assurance, we document that larger firms report at a higher quality on philanthropy and bribery and corruption. Bribery and corruption is reported at a higher quality in countries with common law tradition, high-quality legal regimes, and high CSR standards and regulations in place. We also observe higher quality integrity assurance in common law countries. CSR-minded countries and countries with low-quality legal environment also report on philanthropy at a higher quality. Finally, we offer guidelines for companies toward improving the quality of their reports, and suggestions for scholars and researchers for further avenues of research. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility reporting by large corporations has witnessed phenomenal growth over the last two decades. The voluntary nature of these disclosures, however, has led to inconsistencies in reporting formats, treatment, and inclusion of various contextual elements, and a lack of robust measures pertaining to the quality and accuracy of the reports’ content. Efforts to address these drawbacks such as Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 26000 have proven unsatisfactory due to their primary emphasis on process for creating CSR reports without (...) similar attention on measurement criteria to ensure robust implementation, or verify accuracy of information. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. It uses a new framework—called the CSR-Sustainability Monitor®—of analyzing and evaluating the contents of CSR reports in a manner that allows for a single report to be compared with any other single group, and groups of reports based on industry, country-of-origin, and similar other groupings. Using data from the CSR reports of 614 large corporations worldwide, this study analyzes the character and scope of integrity assurance contained in these CSR reports. The analysis is further extended to explore some external factors that would explain variations in the assurance decision and the quality of integrity assurance in these reports. (shrink)

Shared views regarding the moral respect which is owed to children in family life are used as a guide in determining the moral permissibility of nontherapeutic clinical research procedures involving children. The comparison suggests that it is not appropriate to seek assent from the preadolescent child. The analogy with interventions used in family life is similarly employed to specify the permissible limit of risk to which children may be exposed in nontherapeutic research procedures. The analysis indicates that recent writers misconceive (...) how certain moral principles, such as respect for personal autonomy, require us to act toward children. The results are also used to assess proposed federal regulations on research with children. (shrink)

Should a brain-dead woman be artificially maintained for the sake of her fetus? Does a physician have the right to administer a life-saving transfusion despite the patient's religious beliefs? Can a family request a hysterectomy for their retarded daughter? Physicians are facing moral dilemmas with increasing frequency. But how should these delicate questions be resolved and by whom? A Casebook of Medical Ethics offers a real-life view of the central issue involved in clinical medical ethics. Since the analysis of cases (...) plays a critical role in this study, the authors have assembled a broad collection of histories encountered in their work as medical ethics educators and consultants. The cases are developed in substantial detail to reflect the rich medical and psychosocial complexity involved, and each is brought to a decision point at which a course of action must be chosen. Among the issues examined are conflicts between patients' wishes and respect for their well-being, tensions concerning duties to patients unable to care for themselves and obligations to family members, and clashes between patient care obligations and the interests of other persons, including physicians, third parties, and the general public. The book also includes commentaries that combine general discussion of ethical principles with specific analysis of the cases examined in the text, as well as various options for resolving conflicts. Readers are invited to assess the comparative merits and liabilities of these approaches. An ideal text for undergraduate and medical school courses, A Casebook of Medical Ethics brings readers to the forefront of medicine, where they share in the determination of crucial ethical decisions. (shrink)

Two dogmas of liberalism in the therapeutic setting are challenged: (1) that patients have a ready-made ability to act autonomously; and (2) that non-intervention by physicians is the best strategy for protecting the autonomy of patients. Recognition of the impact of illness upon autonomous behavior forms the basis of this challenge. It is suggested that autonomy is better conceived as a process of personal growth by which patients become better able to overcome the disruptive effects of illness. The physician is (...) assigned an active role in the achievement of this therapeutic goal. The implications of this new liberal theory are illustrated by reference to the informed consent issue. (shrink)

Basson's commentary on my proposals regarding the structure and function of research in bioethics provides a welcome opportunity for extended comparison of standard approaches with the suggestions made in ‘What Bioethics Should Be.’ I begin by noting a common assumption underlying our respective views. I then address points of fundamental difference, indicating why the experimental method proposed in my original essay presents a potentially more productive strategy for examining moral issues in biomedicine. In the latter respect, I certainly disagree with (...) Basson's contention that "we are unable to test" metaethical hypotheses "against reality" (Basson, p. 185) – a proposition which seems no more defensible than the equally untenable claim that we cannot refine methods of natural science research through examination of their usefulness in advancing our understanding of the correlation of events in nature. (shrink)

Draws on examples ranging from prehistoric cave art to modern pop music to discuss the nature and purpose of art and its use by powerful social and cultural forces.

ARISTOTLE often claims that words are "homonymous" or "multivocal". He claims this about some of the crucial words and concepts of his own philosophy—"cause," "being," "one," "good," "justice," "friendship." Often he claims it with a polemical aim; other philosophers have wrongly overlooked homonymy and supposed that the same word is always said in the same way. Plato made this mistake; his accounts of being, good, and friendship are rejected because they neglect homonymy and multivocity. In Aristotle’s view Plato shared the (...) Socratic assumption about words and definitions. Socrates thought that when he asked "What is F?" some single definition of F could always be found to match the name "F." Aristotle thinks the Socratic question is important, but argues that it must be controlled by awareness of homonymy and multivocity. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 2 Seiten: 596-601.

Introduction: divine violence and political fetishism -- The political theology of sovereignty -- In the maw of sovereignty -- Benjamin's dissipated eschatology -- Waiting for justice -- Forgiveness, judgment and sovereign decision -- The Hebrew republic -- Conclusion : the anarchist hypothesis.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

The paper describes the approach by which ethics are integrated into the undergraduate curriculum at Northern Illinois University''s College of Business. Literature is reviewed to identify conceptual frameworks for, and issues associated with, the teaching of business ethics. From the review, a set of guidelines for teaching ethics is developed and proposed. The objectives and strategies implemented for teaching ethics is discussed. Foundation and follow-up coursework, measurement issues and ancillary programs are also discussed.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have been transformative. They are pre-trained foundational models that are self-supervised and can be adapted with fine tuning to a wide range of natural language tasks, each of which previously would have required a separate network model. This is one step closer to the extraordinary versatility of human language. GPT-3 and more recently LaMDA can carry on dialogs with humans on many topics after minimal priming with a few examples. However, there has been a wide range (...) of reactions and debate on whether these LLMs understand what they are saying or exhibit signs of intelligence. This high variance is exhibited in three interviews with LLMs reaching wildly different conclusions. A new possibility was uncovered that could explain this divergence. What appears to be intelligence in LLMs may in fact be a mirror that reflects the intelligence of the interviewer, a remarkable twist that could be considered a Reverse Turing Test. If so, then by studying interviews we may be learning more about the intelligence and beliefs of the interviewer than the intelligence of the LLMs. As LLMs become more capable they may transform the way we interact with machines and how they interact with each other. Increasingly, LLMs are being coupled with sensorimotor devices. LLMs can talk the talk, but can they walk the walk? A road map for achieving artificial general autonomy is outlined with seven major improvements inspired by brain systems. LLMs could be used to uncover new insights into brain function by downloading brain data during natural behaviors. (shrink)

By recourse to the fundamentals of preference orderings and their numerical representations through linear utility, we address certain questions raised in Nover and Hájek 2004, Hájek and Nover 2006, and Colyvan 2006. In brief, the Pasadena and Altadena games are well-defined and can be assigned any finite utility values while remaining consistent with preferences between those games having well-defined finite expected value. This is also true for the St Petersburg game. Furthermore, the dominance claimed for the Altadena game over the (...) Pasadena game, and that would have been claimed for the St Petersburg game over the Altadena, can be contradicted without fear of inconsistency with the axioms of utility theory. However, insistence upon dominance can be made to yield a contradiction of the Archimedean axiom of utility theory. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Professional Ethics: A Trust-Based Approach explores the unique nature of professional duty and virtue in light of the trust that professionals must invite, develop, and honor from those they intend to serve.

To explore how molecules became signs I will ask: “What sort of process is necessary and sufficient to treat a molecule as a sign?” This requires focusing on the interpreting system and its interpretive competence. To avoid assuming any properties that need to be explained I develop what I consider to be a simplest possible molecular model system which only assumes known physics and chemistry but nevertheless exemplifies the interpretive properties of interest. Three progressively more complex variants of this model (...) of interpretive competence are developed that roughly parallel an icon-index-symbol hierarchic scaffolding logic. The implication of this analysis is a reversal of the current dogma of molecular and evolutionary biology which treats molecules like DNA and RNA as the original sources of biological information. Instead I argue that the structural characteristics of these molecules have provided semiotic affordances that the interpretive dynamics of viruses and cells have taken advantage of. These molecules are not the source of biological information but are instead semiotic artifacts onto which dynamical functional constraints have been progressively offloaded during the course of evolution. (shrink)

Christian hope of resurrection requires that the one raised be the same person who died. Philosophers and theologians alike seek to understand the coherence of bodily resurrection and what accounts for numerical identity between the earthly and risen person. I address this question from the perspective of disability. Is a person with a disability raised in the age to come with that disability? Many theologians argue that disability is essential to one's identity such that it could not be eliminated in (...) the resurrection. What anthropology undergirds these claims is not often explicated. I argue that Thomistic hylemorphic anthropology provides the best context to understand the human person such that disability is not essential to identity. In the resurrection, we shall become truly ourselves. The marks of disability may remain, but Thomistic anthropology expresses the coherence of bodily resurrection in which one may hope for healing which eliminates the disability but not numerical identity. (shrink)

Beginning right at the start of the recently published volume II of Donner le temps, at its ‘bord’ or ‘boarding’ upon or out of a calmy oceanic surface, this essay examines the functions and movements of distinct surfaces in between Heidegger and Derrida. Confronting thus the tradition of the ‘Grund’, ‘Abgrund’, ‘Urgrund’, ‘Ungrund’, with the khôra-like surface of archi-writing and dissemination, the essay proposes an investigation of the philosophical and writerly space of Derrida/Heidegger not through their marks and letters, but (...) instead through the different surfaces of inscription and – simultaneous – effacement as the ‘proper places’ of thought and experience, of Destruktion and deconstruction. (shrink)